I am prepping a scenario for play in Peterborough, Ontario, this April.
It is set in the Casiguran Matriarchy.
Some smarty pants somewhere was dissing Burning Empires for a dearth of scenarios that dealt with gender. So I thought I would try my hand. I am a pretty slovenly writer so I doubt that I will ever have a quality PDF to show for my efforts. But if anyone wants my notes after the fact, I will be glad to share.
THE PLANET
Planet: Tihchion
Root Culture: Kasiguran Matriarchy
Kind of Planet: Outworld
Atmosphere: Non-Life Supporting
Hydrology: Predominantly Liquid
Topography: Artificially Created
Technology: Low Index (Spacefaring) w. Karsan bringing in High Index.
Tihchion is in the Kasiguarn Matriarchy. A deputation from the Karsan Worlds has arrived to recruit support from worlds untouched by the Vaylen. Moreover..., the Kasigurans possess a genetic strain of psychic powers -- passed matrilineally via mitochondrial DNA -- that could be of great use in the struggle.
The planet had no indigenous life, aside from microbes and lichens. To create the conditions for human-compatible life, a number of the planet's shallow Mediterranean-style seas had their inlets blocked off to form bowls. In these bowls a variety of desert-adapted species were introduced. The thin trickle of desalinated water pouring down from the inlet-blocking hydroelectric dams provided enough moisture for this artificial environment to maintain an ecosystem. Enough oxygen gathers in these bowls for humans to walk with breeding apparatus, but most people spend their entire lives in the bubbleplexes or in the cliff complexes.
The high uplands lack the pressure to create a breathable atmosphere. Both the seas and land a suffused with life forms to whom the nitrogen/oxygen mix characteristic of the bowls is lethal. The native microscopic life is inimical to human physiology and causes anaphylaxis in minutes.
So, yes there is human life here. And alien life -- the creatures that were imported in ages past and the local weirdness. But a whole bunch of tech and security is needed to stay alive. I think that covers everyone.
THE READING LIST
I am looking at various animal models of male display & competition / female mate selection to provide a little science to our sci fi.
Scale Insects
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect
Lek Mating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lek_mating
Animal Behavior/Lek Polygyny
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Animal_Behavior/Lek_Polygyny
Competitor intrusions and mate-search tactics in a territorial marine fish
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/9/5/439.full.pdf
Leks and hilltopping in insects
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00222938700771041
Government is Imperial Stewardship
The Blurb
"The Ranii of the Kasiguran Matriarchy have held their Empire secure by the force of their psychic Gift. Now, outworlders have come to the peripheral world of Tihchion, warning of a dire threat to the Kingdoms of Men: The Valen. If an invasive species is killing off the remains of the menworlds, why should the noble psychologists and aristocrats of Tihchion lift a finger, or spare mentroops, to help them? Get your overwrought space opera on with a session of Burning Empires, based on the Iron Empires comics of Chris Moeller."
This is my kind of thing in all sorts of ways. Aside from the obvious (sociobiology), there's the gender in SF issue and also the opportunity for you to contrast your experiences here with your extensive reflections on FATE a year or two ago at the Forge.
Question: did you set up the planet and similar stuff all by yourself? I was under the impression it was supposed to be a group action. Not that it's heresy or wrong necessarily, but I wanted to know.
Best, Ron
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 10, 2013, 11:15:59 AM
*there's the gender in SF issue ...
Yeah. And gender in con-scenarios. I know that some organizers are starting to mandate that scenarios include female character options. But I have been reading what a can about what forms of horror, wish-fulfilment, and power fantasies appeal to women. I am familiar with the detritus of masculine fantasies littering my head but providing meaningful play content for the rest of the people on the planet is still a challenge.
On the lekking thing. I thought it would be fun to play with gender roles but not in terms of simple reversal of stereotypes. In this setting, male characters can still engage in all the violence, competition, and bromance that are the stuff of adventure fiction. But it is for the delectation of the economic and political decision makers of the society.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 10, 2013, 11:15:59 AM
* the opportunity for you to contrast your experiences here with your extensive reflections on FATE a year or two ago at the Forge
Well I have for a long time been sold on the linkages between world-prep, character creation, scenarios, & long-term play that are baked into the Burning Empires system. That stuff paid off in a year-long campaign that was the zenith of my RPG experience in the last 10 years. Neither Starblazer Adventures or Dresden really came close. Diaspora looks like it could. And the retooling of the FATE engine with emphasis on a leaner currency economy might be able to produce the kind of play I was looking for.
I am not quite sure that I love Heroquest as much as I once did. But my setting-heavy Glorantha game has been rolling along. The setting-heavy narrativism agenda paid off, and the Community rules in the new book might have enabled it. But I just keep rolling along with the agenda and players keep coming to participate in it and aren't really into working the mechanics. You can't do that in Burning Empires. You cannot engage with the setting unless you know how all the little dials and levers work in that game.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on March 10, 2013, 11:15:59 AM
* Question: did you set up the planet and similar stuff all by yourself? I was under the impression it was supposed to be a group action. Not that it's heresy or wrong necessarily, but I wanted to know..
I have been flaking out on my commitments to the Peterborough convention. [It's a nice little town, about 2 hours East of Toronto, a slight detour off of the route to Quebec.] I got to know some the players and organizers when they came down to Pandemonium, a long-running Toronto con that has breathed its last. I kept prepping new and indie games to take there and they were well-received. So when I flaked out AGAIN I made a promise to some folks that I would bring something special for them. We ran through the world burning steps via a series of Facebook polls. I will get the numbers for the world, a situation in the Usurpation phase, and the figures of note.
The players will customize their characters by framing Beliefs that relate to some of the evolution, sex, and gender themes that grow out of the science background.
World Generation
Galactic Location: Outworld
Atmospheric Conditions: Non-life-Supporting
Hydrology: Predominantly Land
Topography: Artificially Created Environs
Tech Index: Low Index
Dominant Government: Imperial Stewardship
Factions:
- Slaves and Serfs
- Psychologist Foundations
- Indigenous Life-Forms
- Military Junta
- Imperial Bureaucracy
- Civilian Commune
Remove Freeman: Yes
Remove Spacefarer: No
Predominant Military: Lords-Pilot
Planetary Attitude: Indifferent
Primary Export/Industry: Services/Skilled Labor (biology, ecologists, education)
Level of Quarantine: No Quarantine
Economic Regulation: Tightly Regulated
Phase: Usurpation
Vaylen Disposition: 37
Human Disposition: 17
After world burning, character concepts.
The beliefs have been transposed from evolutionary theories about the emergence of lekking behvaiours, particularly concern for preservation of resources and protecting resources from invasive species.
FIGURES OF NOTE
Human
Ambika [NPC/FoN]
Casiguran, Fem, Matriarch, Imperial Steward
FoN Relationship: Former lover of Nihanta
Vaylen Relationship: Aunt of Bramhi
The Vaylen are not really a threat: convince the Karsan ambassador to leave.
Iyuun's abilities are astounding: make her ...
Too many Gifted Ranii are diluting their genelines: reinforce pairbonding and multiple children.
Zayadvrah si-Bramhi [PC]
Casiguran, Mal, Bodyguard to Ambika
Vaylen Relationship: Son of Bramhi
FoN Relationship: Son of Nihanta
The Vaylen want intense sensation: ensure that they do not infiltrate the Lek
Kundaj has been showing too much attention to the women: I must ...
Men need strong role models: protect reputation of Junta-leader Nihanta
Taruni [PC]
Casiguran, Fem, Chatelaine in Service of Ambika
FoN Relationship: Devoted to Ambika
Vaylen Relationship: In love with J
The Vaylen are merely an excuse for the Karsan men to meddle in our world: find proof for my suspicions.
Jaran the ambassador is not a threat, but his Gifted wife is: I will ...
Starting new bloodlines is expensive: ensure prosperity of Ambika's stead while at the Grand Lek.
Iyunn Tegus [PC]
Karsan, Fem, Circle 10K Consul (Psi Foundations)
Vaylen Relationship: Wife of Jaran Tegus
The Vaylen are already here: expose Vaylen infiltration among the Ranii.
The Junta brutalizes lower-caste men: I must ...
There are untapped psychic resources among Thichion's men: get a promising male to join Circle of 10,000
Kundaj [PC]
Karsan, Male, Assistant to Iyuun
FoN Relationship: In debt to Para
Vaylen Relationship: Friend with Ooghra
The Vaylen have infiltrated the men of this world: prevent hulling of any women during the Lek.
Women like Para are the future of this planet: I must ...
Thichion's society is remarkably stable and efficient: prevent disruption of native society by us Karsan.
Nihanta [PC]
Casiguran, Male, Lekthane
FoN Relationship: Father of Zayadvrah
Vaylen Relationship: Enemy of Ooghra
The Vaylen have hulled native life: bring proof of this to any Ranii
The Gift is holy and is meant for women, not men like Kundaj: I will ...
The Promintory has been a fortuitous place to win wives: make everyone wonder at its splendor and beauty.
Wundra [PC]
Casiguran, Female, Clan Lady
FoN Relationship: Ambitious for Para
Vaylen Relationship: Enemy of Jaran Tegus
Para has been acting strangely lately: assure self that she has not been taken over by one of those worm things.
A man with the Gift could make a great contribution to my geneline: He must ...
Nihanta's power and prestige keep Thichion stable: prevent Famsah from winning the prerogative away from Nihanta.
Para si-Nihanta [PC]
Casiguran, Daughter of Wundra and Nihanta
FoN Relationship: Eager to please Nihanta
Vaylen Relationship: Training with Bramhi
Our duty is to keep this planet's ecosystem in balance and alien species are a threat to that: assess Vaylen threat to the ecosphere.
There is unusual intimacy between the offworlders: I must learn ...
Thichion's ways are backward: get off of this planet to see what the galaxy is really like.
Famsah si-Wundra [PC]
Casiguran, Son of Wundra and Nihanta
FoN Relationship: Eager to please Wundra
Vaylen Relationship: Beloved by Bramhi
The Vaylen want to experience the wonders of being me? Ensure that there is no chance that one of those things gets close to me during the Lek.
The Karsan do not know the joys of Lekking: I will ...
Thichion's ways are great: prevent annoying outworlders from spreading doubt and dissent.
Vaylen
Bramhi si-Hodiha [NPC-FoN]
Casiguran, Fem, Rani-Pilot, Rival of Imperial Steward
FoN Relationship:
Human Relationship: Niece of Ambika
It is time for a bold move: hull a Ranii
The Karsan are a threat to our plans: kill
There is much to be learned about all of humanity from Thichion: get one of my Naiven implanted in a male Lek participant.
Jaran Tegus [NPC]
Karsan, Male, Ambassador of Karsan Worlds
FoN Relationship:
Human Relationship: Husband of Iyuun
Iyuun is getting too close to discovering us: have her die in what looks like an accident.
The Promintory is the most beautiful spot on this world: hull Nihanta to insure that it becomes our clan's personal property.
This Lekking is delightfully demented: do not allow Karsans to weaken its intensity.
Oohgra [NPC]
Casiguran, Male, Lekerhl,
FoN Relationship:
Human Relationship: Rival of Nihanta
There is nothing more delightful than victory: defeat Nihanta in upcoming Lek event.
The Karsan are getting too close: destroy their Institute on this world.
Lekking is a great opportunity to usurp human control: use the occasion to hull as many of Ambika's serfs as possible.
edited to fix display - RE
Bramhi has to be rewritten: Psychologists with the Gift cannot be taken over by the Vaylen and retain their Gift.
So, she is consciously collaborating with the Vaylen: as she regards the male of the species as little better than animals, she does not mind if they choose to hull some of the men. So long as they do not go anywhere past her world.
Also, I am going to give one of the human males covert Psychology ... and the mule trait so that no-one recognizes it.
Hi Erik,
So many questions! I will restrict myself to process, because the SF content you're coming up with is tempting me too much and I want to wait until some real play is under way.
So, what are your observations about the communal creation process? Did everyone participate easily? Was anyone hard to prompt or to draw into contributing? Did it seem to you that different visions produced a (functional) compromise, or were people generally inspired by one another, in a "you said X so I think Y will be interesting in addition" way?
Which characters strike you as particularly likeable or particularly full of drama, or both?
Best, Ron
Quote from: Erik Weissengruber on March 31, 2013, 11:56:25 AM
Also, I am going to give one of the human males covert Psychology ... and the mule trait so that no-one recognizes it.
Famsah is the Mule!
He is a secret psychic. Largely as a result of Fuur genetic contributions. BUT THAT MEANS HE IS INFERTILE! He can use his gift to win at the Lek but he CANNOT START a GENELINE!
All sorts of intrigue available there.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on April 01, 2013, 12:40:16 PM
So, what are your observations about the communal creation process?
Um ... its fun? The poll method that I used on Facebook was relatively painless. It was a poll and I broke some of the ties with my votes.
In face-to-face practice, the table has to come through with a consensus. I seem to end up being part of "but" worlds. As in "This is a backwards world BUT there is a vestage of a prior culture," or "We are a space station dedicated to pleasure BUT there are some powered armour dudes who want to mess stuff up." The BUT comes from trying to accomodate an outlier to the consensus.
There was one world were we brought some colour to the table: the GM was riffing off Pashtun culture and had a bunch of cool names from the Pakistan/Afghanistan part of the world. I had found photos of bizzare deep sea microrganisms that were driving my brain for the aliens. And I brought my big BUT. Our world was under imperial stewardship but I was in posession of an ancestral fief located high in the mountains. And I had delusions of becoming a galactic messiah. I justified it to myself by thinking of the baroque complexity of feudal politics. Frex, the Italian lords of the Duino castle who served the Austro-Hungarian Emperor and ruled over Slovenian serfs. It worked but the group did have to have a "let's let Erik get his little castle and move on" moment.
The worlds that I have seen generated often lack the purity of concept you get in single-author stories. But I have never been in a broken or goofy one.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on April 01, 2013, 12:40:16 PM
Which characters strike you as particularly likeable or particularly full of drama, or both?
Best, Ron
Ambika was designed to be a remote figure, an imperious Dowager Empress type. Good to have around but not meant to be a PC.
The 2 sesssions had ALL of the PC characters picked up except Wundra. I don't think I gave her a strong enough "hook."
This scenario is going to be re-presented at the Fall session of Phantasm. I have to rethink the main NPCs. They were "burned up" very poorly and the players had a far too easy time of it ... mechanically.
But here are some the good color and fictional elements introduced:
Nihanta [PC]
Casiguran, Male, Lekthane
FoN Relationship: Father of Zayadvrah
-- the old, successful participant in the competition for mating privileges
One player wrote down these as the three beliefs
Honor before sacrifice
Honor before victory
Victory for all
-- that is to say, every participant in the lek can do better than before, even against himself: it's like Homeric and Aristotelian virtue ethics in a genetically modified society
Famsah si-Wundra [PC]
Casiguran, Son of Wundra and Nihanta
-- the ambitious, resentful mutant who nurses a non-transmittible genetic gift for male psionics
-- He was going to deliver some of these ideas as a poem at the lek
- World faces grave threat
- Ancestry led to this day
- In Times of peace women led the day
- Men have waged the wars
- We are not now at war but we need a leader to deal with the threat
- I am/must be our best warrior, but more
- The time for Action comes and without this [a?] leader we will fall to the wyrm
[the player's notes on the back of the character sheet are hard to read]
The fact I had to get on the bus back to Toronto and never got to do the final Conflict that was owed the players is a non-repayable debt that irks me to this day.
Also: there was a player who had a cis-gendered name but whose clothes, demeanour, and voice were hard to characterize as either male or female. This player made a very clever choice to get the cautious leaders of the planet on side with fighting the Vaylen.
In a society with highly ritualized and firm gender roles what could be more abominable than a hermaphrodidic parasite infiltrating. That activated the leaders of the world.
The player who had the guts to invoke a social taboo in the fiction that the player was transgressing at that very moment as a real human being took guts.
But most importantly allowed the group to win the phase!
Hi Erik,
Let me see if I get it, though ... first, that the players won all three phases, or won the first two and then seemed about to win for good, if the game hadn't been cut short just prior to the final dice exchange. Is that right?
It also strikes me that you took Burning Empires pretty far down the road of social science fiction, rather than staying with the intrinsic social crises baked into the setting - medieval vs. modern, minority issues with the frog-people, for instance. Did those seem too obvious to you?
I have always wanted to play Burning Empires but not to GM it. From that perspective, I'm interested in the details of the NPCs, and how you came to realize they hadn't been burned (generated) well, especially regarding their contribution to the adversarial fiction. How would you go about burning them better, keeping everything else equal?
Best, Ron
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 19, 2013, 03:47:08 PM
Hi Erik,
Let me see if I get it, though ... first, that the players won all three phases, or won the first two and then seemed about to win for good, if the game hadn't been cut short just prior to the final dice exchange. Is that right?
I misspoke. Let me lay this out:
1) I ran the same scenario TWO times, different players each time
2) Each session had an abbreviated Campaign interlude. The players were asked to imagine that their side had lost the first Maneuver. Then, they were asked to imagine what had happened during the second Maneuver and we did a quick and dirty version of the end-of-session mechanic to figure out how that Maneuver might have played out.
3) With a bit of hypothetical Campaign backround in place, the players were then asked to pick the Maneuver they were going to pursue throughout the session.
4) We played the normal Session sequence
5) At the end we rolled for the results of that session's Maneuver.
It was important for me that players get a sense of the mechanical relationship between individual sessions in an on-going sequence and the meta-arc of the Phase mechanic.
It also strikes me that you took Burning Empires pretty far down the road of social science fiction, rather than staying with the intrinsic social crises baked into the setting - medieval vs. modern, minority issues with the frog-people, for instance. Did those seem too obvious to you?
I have always wanted to play Burning Empires but not to GM it. From that perspective, I'm interested in the details of the NPCs, and how you came to realize they hadn't been burned (generated) well, especially regarding their contribution to the adversarial fiction. How would you go about burning them better, keeping everything else equal?
Best, Ron
[/quote]
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 19, 2013, 03:47:08 PM
Hi Erik,
... if the game hadn't been cut short just prior to the final dice exchange. Is that right?
That is mostly correct. The 2nd running of the scenario had to be cut short. So I had to say to the player of the mutant: "Great! What a great idea! But we don't have time to play that out. so howzabout I let you roll for the end of maneuver results" or some such lame recompense.
It really hurts the game if you skip over the big conflict on the players' side. I have run other RPGs where the players let me run roughtshod over them but it goes fine because they expect the GM to do all of the work. But in this game, if you flub the scene economy the session just feels weird.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 19, 2013, 03:47:08 PM
It also strikes me that you took Burning Empires pretty far down the road of social science fiction, rather than staying with the intrinsic social crises baked into the setting - medieval vs. modern, minority issues with the frog-people, for instance. Did those seem too obvious to you?
It was not a conscious decision to avoid those crises. My choices of characters emphasized different parts of the default setting. By going with the extant lifepaths, I generated PCs whose different experiences but them in tension with each other. A PC with experience in the mercantile world has different traits and abilities than one who has been through the courtiers' world. And they are in tension with each other even if they are both female, of high social station, and possess psychic powers. I was able to get men from low-level lifepaths to high-ranking court positions by having them serve as bondsmen. That mechanical necessity created an interesting implied social relations.
Our strange world and the highly setting-tied characters all came about by following the game's procedures, even if my input was somewhat atypical.
Quote from: Ron Edwards on June 19, 2013, 03:47:08 PM
I have always wanted to play Burning Empires but not to GM it. From that perspective, I'm interested in the details of the NPCs, and how you came to realize they hadn't been burned (generated) well, especially regarding their contribution to the adversarial fiction. How would you go about burning them better, keeping everything else equal?
Best, Ron
The NPCs lacked the social skills needed to do well at Duels of Wit, and the millitary skills to do well in Firefight. They did OK at the end-of-session Maneuver rolls. I just have to make smarter skills choices when I rewrite them, no big conceptual rethink.
Now it's my turn. Why do you want to play BE? And why do you not want to GM it?
Hi Erik,
Thanks! To my eyes, this is Sex & Sorcery in all its glory, precisely the kind of thinking and play I'd hoped to inspire – and historically, successfully did. I'm not claiming you in particular were prompted just by this book, but I am proud of prompting an influential swath of on-line RPG contributors who effectively made talking/playing like this "the new normal." And yes, Meg's "I will not abandon you" in full.
The structure's also boggling my mind, especially since you're not imposing it so much as frantically seizing existing game-structure features as needed.
QuoteWhy do you want to play BE? And why do you not want to GM it?
It's high on my
list of SF RPGs to play (http://adept-press.com/works-in-progress/science-fiction-rpg-project/). I see it as an exciting combination of action-SF (Aliens) and social-SF, along the lines of a lot of Poul Anderson's fiction. From an RPG standpoint alone, it's an extremely ambitious design, combining the age-old campaign+personal play with the Story Now priority. I don't think I've ever seen that before or since.
I also realized in drafting this post that there are two separate issues at work for me: one is excitement about playing a character concept for a given game, and the other is GMing that game. They're not alternatives, but independent issues.
For example, for 31 years, I have wanted to play an Irrippi Ontor sage flirting with Chaos, in hopes of finding someone to GM while I do so. And I'm also willing to GM Hero Wars.
I feel similarly regarding the lifepaths in BE, as with all the Burning games, and would simply enjoy playing the result of character creation, armed with and ultimately struggling with Beliefs and Instincts, in both the color and substantial content of this setting.
However, unlike the Glorantha example, I'm not personally a good Burning GM. Part of the reason comes from trying to GM the Burning Wheel exactly at the moment of transition between the very-first 2003 original and its revision, which screwed up my learning curve such that to this day I can't keep procedural differences straight between the two. Some of the GMing tasks aren't really my favorite things to do either, or perhaps that's a function of needing to play with people who know the system thoroughly and can do things like apply damage results without me mastering the process every single time for them.
Best, Ron
There is no way that I would be designing scenarios like this without having read Sex and Sorcery and playing a gender-informed Sorcerer Game.
I saw this scenario as a demo of the features I love about BE. So I did not permit myself any drifting.
But I grabbed the rules and just applied them with a fully-realized intention. You must write beliefs and come up with a character concept or the game goes nowhere.
The clash between chosen theme and the colour of the lifepaths is a fruitful one. For example, one of the female characters was forced to take the "Effeminate" trait to reflect her time at court. And the politically correct side of me said, "wait, this is an independent minded woman with great power, how could she have this trait." But then I reflected that to be a courtier is to be concerned about the daily maintenance of social perceptions, meticulous attention to every aspect of one's appearance, attracting the attention of admirers and subtly marginalizing competitors. The mastery of these behaviours could be considered stereotypically "feminine" but they are a necessary part of survival in a highly-ritualized court setting.
A character conflicting against her memories and politics in order to reach a political goal, and bearing the marks of that decision to compromise and fit in with the court, makes for good drama. And the game allows you to OVERCOME traits through focused play. So you are made to play a character who has been made "effeminate" but who can, through work and personal commitment, rework or remove that trait. Something like "people make their own history but do not chose the grounds on which they make it ..."
The Poul Anderson connection works for me. BE is not Asimov and it's not George Lucas or Ian Banks (RIP). I am also reminded of Gordon Dickinson.